It’s hard not to be moved to tears by the sight of two lonely northern white rhinos standing under 24-hour armed guard in Central Kenya – the last of the species left in the world and, tragically, both female.
While civil wars in their natural rangelands and the despicable greed of poachers has all but driven them to extinction, incredibly, there’s now hope they might be saved by advances in a science lab almost 11,000 kilometres away in Germany.
And then there were two … Najin and Fatu.
“This could be amazing for future generations,” says their devoted carer Zacharia Mutai, 45, the head gatekeeper of white rhino in their 280-hectare wildlife area at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, five hours north of Nairobi. “One day, we hope we’ll have more northern white rhinos. It will be a modern miracle.”
At the sound of his voice, Najin, 34, and her daughter, Fatu, 23, move closer. Mutai is a human they’ve come to trust and, as he offers them an armful of sugar cane, carrots and alfalfa, they’re coaxed to come closer to me, sitting inside a safari truck.
“You can stroke behind their ears,” Mutai instructs me, signalling me to lean out. “They like that. But stay inside the vehicle. They are still wild animals and their mood can change.”
Touching the leathery, two-centimetre-thick skin as they watch on, is spellbinding. And while the idea that these might be the last creatures of their kind still brings tears coursing down my face – for both them and the state of humanity that has allowed such a thing to happen – the prospect of a revival of the otherwise doomed species makes my heart skip a beat.
The miracle has been performed by scientists in the Leibnitz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research. Egg cells have been harvested cells from Fatu which have then been fertilised with frozen semen taken from one of the last male northern white rhinos. The result has been five embryos, with one about to be implanted into a hardier southern white rhino – which will be more capable of carrying the fetus for the punishing, 15-month pregnancy.
Najin and Fatu’s protector, Zacharia Mutai.
“This is the first time this has ever been tried,” says Mutai, whose father also devoted his life to the care of the white rhinos. “It’s never been done in rhinos before. But if this works … we could end up with many. It will be so amazing for the future generations.”